In an unprecedented show of anger, more than 40 high-profile women, including Clare Balding, Sue Barker, Emily Maitlis, Sarah Montague and Mishal Husain, demanded that Lord Hall of Birkenhead, the BBC director-general, “do the right thing” to stamp out its tradition of paying women vastly smaller salaries compared with those of their male counterparts.

Kate Silverton is one of a number of female presenters complaining about the gender pay gap.Credit:
BBC

The open letter, also signed by Kirsty Wark, Elaine Paige, Samira Ahmed, Victoria Derbyshire and Angela Rippon, rounded on previous BBC bosses, claiming that the disparity between pay for men and women had been known about “for years”.

The letter demands: “You have said that you will ‘sort’ the gender pay gap by 2020, but the BBC has known about the pay disparity for years. We all want to go on the record to call upon you to act now.”

Inviting Lord Hall to meet a newly-created working group of female staff, it adds: “This is an opportunity for those of us with strong and loud voices to use them on behalf of all, and for an organisation that had to be pushed into transparency to do the right thing.”

The clamour for a united response by female staff had been mounting since the list of top earners’ pay was published on Wednesday.

Increasing numbers of female broadcasters backed calls for either a wage cut for men or a salary increase for women.

The comments have fuelled expectation that female staff could launch a class action against the BBC, claiming it is breaking employment law.

Writing in today’s Telegraph, Libby Purves, a former BBC Radio 4 Today programme presenter, said she feared that some managers at the corporation were salving their conscience about their own high pay by awarding celebrities even higher salaries.

Clare Balding has joined other stars in signing a letter complaining about the gender pay gap at the BBC.Credit:
Andrew Crowley

Of the seven highest-earning women named in the BBC’s annual report, only three – Sue Barker, Alex Jones and Fiona Bruce – put their names to the letter.